Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

Ageist view. Biden is simply too old to serve, you can argue it must be an illness of some type, but I won't, you simply decline mentally at 30 in subtle ways that include overall slowness in thinking, difficulties sustaining attention, multi-tasking, holding information, and word-finding. Biden is not ill, he just exhibits these features of age on a regular basis and they are not compensated for by his tremendous experience in high office.

Apologies. But it will slowly happen to any of us that lasts past 30 and the longer you go on the worse it gets....

[Mick Harper]

Argentina has elected a far-right fruitcake to be president. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? The first thing to say is that Javier Milei is a genuine fruitcake, not a standard populist/opportunist. The second thing to say is is his accession to power does not herald the usual Latin American far right revolutionary programme: arrest, torture and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Javier Milei does not have any following in the country to speak of -- other than for him being president -- so he doesn't have the troops (literally or amateur enthusiasts) to go in for much in that line. But by the same token, he's not going to be able to be all that revolutionary either.

The third and most important thing to say is that any country that elects a fruitcake as president is likely to be in sore need of a fruitcake as a president, and Argentina is no exception. So what's wrong with Argentina? As I've mentioned before it has spent the whole of the twentieth century going from being one of the richest countries on earth to being one of the poorest, and it has done this not in the usual way -- permanent government by one faction or another -- but by a veritable fruit salad of governance: left wing and right wing dictatorships, military governments, elected soft right, elected soft-left, technocrats, IMF, you name it. So what's gone wrong structurally? That's what I'm here to tell you and why Javier Milei is probably good news...

[Mick Harper]

Just to interrupt Argentina for a mo', we have news that the centre right in Holland, who were favourites to win the election after putting up a voter-friendly woman, have been kyboshed by the far right. "Ah," said everyone on the left, "you've only got yourself to blame because you said you might work with them, thus giving them legitimacy."

Thus demonstrating why the Far Right does so well. They're tremendously popular because voters are fed up with left-liberal polices but right-liberal parties are not allowed to work with them so.... It is not so much that liberals should reflect on whether their policies are correct or not -- people don't change their minds about such fundamental things -- but to factor in what happens if they don't.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

See what I mean?

[Mick Harper]

Argentina was a rich country at the turn of the twentieth century because it was a de facto part of the British Empire. Having put British Empire notions of race relations into practice and rid themselves of non-white people, they settled down to be a Canada, an Australia or a New Zealand. A prime producer sending wheat'n'meat to the Mother Country in return for economic prosperity and political stability.

Only they had Italians and Spanish rather then WASPs and Irish so this didn't last. They started to soak the rich instead of milking them, forgetting that the rich always have a choice. They either skedaddled with all their loot or stayed put and spent it. Either way Argentina no longer had sufficient domestic capital to keep thrusting forward. Soon the sums were no longer adding up and the population at large were asking where all their milk had gone. No problem, said their government, and started printing money to pay for the milk.

Or borrowing from abroad. Or selling the family silver. Or imposing levelling-down programmes from the left. Or dictatorships from the right to stop the whining. Any which way, but today eighty per cent of Argentinians are in receipt of government largesse of one kind or another, and there's not a thing they can do about it. In a democracy, eighty per cent adds up to one hell of a lot of votes, but twenty per cent ain't nowhere enough to pay for it.

That's why I support this new bloke.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Let's take the Argie at his word, his big idea is with inflation running at 140% he is going to abolish the central bank, abolish the currency and dollarise. It's the equvalent of the UK reaching 140% inflation, then saying this ain't working, we will join the Euro as it's a more stable currency. BTW we hope that their politicians and central bankers are going to be better at running things than we are and, when taking their fiscal and monetary decisions, they keep in mind that over the last few years we have had it tough. If they come in and insist that we make dramatic spending cuts, we of course will, because they know better than we do.

It is not serious is it?

[Mick Harper]

What is serious is that Argentina will get a five-year break from bribing the electorate. The dude has no clientele to satisfy. That's a solid start. And while I have no idea how he will fare (nobody does, not even you, Wiley) I feel duty bound to examine your tired objections

[Wile E. Coyote]

To me then, it's all sounding all a bit Carlos Menem and others. He is a populist who pegs the peso, cuts public spending and starts privatising.

That actually sounds pretty normal for Chicago school adherents.

I don't see any originality.

Where is the beef?

[Mick Harper]

Menem was one of the better presidents since, though coming to power as a Peronist, he pursued non-Peronist policies. You're really getting the hang of this, Wiley.

[Mick Harper]

There's a programme airing on British telly, Stasi FC, all about how the head of the Stasi, Erich Mielke, decided his club, Dynamo Berlin, was to become the Bayern Munich of East Germany. Being the head of the Stasi he was able to make sure DB FC won the championship uninterruptedly from then on. So far, interesting but ho-hum.

What was outside the programme's brief was why he was allowed to do this. In commie countries there is tension at the top between the Party, the Army and the Security Services which is resolved behind closed doors. There is the added factor that Moscow decides how it is resolved in the satellite countries. There was no doubt that Mielke's policy was generating unrest. Every football fan in the country -- including eventually Dynamo Berlin's own -- got the right hump that nobody was getting a fair crack at the whip and football stadia are not places even the finest security service in the world (the Stasi) can control.

The policy did not benefit either East Germany or the Soviet Union -- very much the reverse -- so the question becomes why was Herr Milke allowed to get away with it and for so long. It's one thing for the head of the Stasi to persuade his own Politburo they'd better put up with it, but to persuade the Politburo to put up with it is an enduring mystery.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I am starting to think that these climate change protests are the way to go. The latest occured during a performance of Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’ at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The unfurled message was "No Opera On A Dead Planet” which is undeniably true.

It seems to Wiley that nobody is doing more than Extinction Rebellion to get folks interested in Science.

This is surely a good thing.

[Mick Harper]

They should have waited until Götterdämmerung later in the season. Choosing Tannhäuser risks people missing the point. They did something similar last year over seat prices. It's Maria Callas's hundredth birthday today but her Wagner days are well over.

Meanwhile we were sending a high-level delegation off to COP However-many-it-is. King, prime minister, leader of the opposition (Keith Stammer not Caroline Lucas). Beat that, Sweden. But highly appropriate for the country that started it all. Though not, I am given to understand, because of Henry Cort It was all down to proletarians apparently, but that's got be hushed up now.